- Trump issues TACO Tuesday proclamation as strikes on, from Iran continue
Source: CNN
“[US president Donald] Trump appeared to set a new deadline for Iran to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz. ‘Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time,’ he wrote, after issuing a profane message renewing threats to bomb key Iranian infrastructure, including power plants, if Tehran does not comply. Targeting critical civilian infrastructure could be considered a war crime. Trump has declared and then modified deadlines for the opening of the strait multiple times. Senior Iranian officials issued their own threats in response and said the strait will remain blocked until Iran receives payment for war damages. … Two people were killed in the Israeli city of Haifa after a missile struck a seven-story building, with emergency workers still searching for two more missing persons early Monday. … At least 13 people were killed by a US-Israeli attack early Monday on two residential buildings in Baharestan County, a densely populated area southwest of Tehran, according to state media.” (04/06/26)
https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/05/middleeast/iran-us-israel-war-what-we-know-week-6-intl-hnk
- Russian attack kills three in Odesa while Ukraine targets Russian oil infrastructure, officials say
Source: WRAL News
“A Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s southern port city of Odesa killed two women and a toddler, authorities said Monday, while Ukrainian long-range drones targeted Russia’s key Black Sea port for oil exports. The nighttime attack on Odesa heavily damaged an apartment block, killing the women and a 2-year-old child, officials said. Rescuers working under floodlights pulled four people from the rubble. … Krasnodar Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev said that eight people, including two children, were injured in a series of Ukrainian drone attacks on Novorossiisk, one of Russia’s largest Black Sea ports. The attack damaged six apartment buildings and two private houses, he said. Unconfirmed media reports said the drones targeted the Sheskharis oil terminal at the Black Sea port.” (04/06/26)
- Bitcoin reclaims $69,000 as ceasefire talks surface and crypto shorts get squeezed
Source: CoinDesk
“Bitcoin jumped 3% to $69,120 on Monday as traders returned from the Easter weekend to a burst of optimism around a potential Iran ceasefire, pushing the largest cryptocurrency to its highest level in over a week and squeezing $196 million in short positions over the past 24 hours. Ether led a bump among major tokens with a 3.7% gain to $2,130, its strongest daily move in the past week. SOL rose 2% to $82, XRP added 2.2% to $1.34, and dogecoin climbed 1.7% to $0.093. The broad rally pushed the total crypto market cap back above $2.5 trillion.” (04/06/26)
- UPS, Teamsters reach settlement that caps driver severance offers
Source: Reuters
“United Parcel Service said on Sunday that it had reached an agreement with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to cap severance offers at 7,500 drivers after a dispute over the company’s plans to cut its workforce. Under the agreement, UPS will offer $150,000 for early retirement. The union has sought to block the package delivery giant’s Driver Choice Program, arguing that it was initiated without negotiations in violation of its 2023 labor contract.” (04/05/26)
- On Easter, Pope Leo Urges World Leaders [sic] to End Wars, Renounce Conquest
Source: US News & World Report
“Pope Leo urged global leaders in his Easter message on Sunday to end the conflicts raging across the world and abandon any schemes for power, conquest or domination. The pope, who has emerged as an outspoken critic of the Iran war, lamented in a special message to the thousands gathered in St. Peter’s Square that people ‘are growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it, and becoming indifferent.’ ‘Let those who have weapons lay them down!’ the first U.S. pope exhorted. ‘Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace!’ Leo did not mention any specific conflicts in the message, known as the ‘Urbi et Orbi’ (to the city and the world) blessing. It was unusually brief and direct.” (04/05/26)
- Confronting Both Zionism and the Antisemitism It Welcomes
Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid“We must all confront Israel, but we must also confront this toxic runoff along with it and we must confront them both simultaneously with the weapon of history. The Jews are not the problem here, Zionism is, and Zionism has absolutely nothing to do with Judaism or the Semitic people. In fact, Zionism is really just another malignant cell of white supremacy, and it has long disdained both Judaism and most people of Semitic de[s]cent. Zionism emerged from central and eastern Europe during the mid-19th century as a distinctly secular strain of the same European national swamp that would fester into fascism and national socialism, and it caried many of the same characteristics too; devotion to such toxically contrived notions as ‘blood and soil’ and scientific racism, not to mention a pronounced disdain for the east, including the Jews who once closely identified with it.” (04/05/26)
https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2026/04/confronting-both-zionism-and.html
- A journalist who uses AI? The internet was not pleased.
Source: Washington Post
by Megan McArdle“On Thursday morning, I sat down with one of my chatbots and asked it to round up the best takes on a recent social media controversy. The results were unsatisfying — hallucinations, apologies and search results that weren’t what I’d asked for. After several prompts and corrections, the chatbot seemed to give up. Shortly thereafter, so did I. Fortunately, I was intimately familiar with this controversy, since I touched it off. In social media parlance, I was ‘the main character,’ so I already had plenty of raw material and could see how badly ChatGPT had failed. But if you’re hoping for a column on why artificial intelligence is useless, I regret to disappoint.” (04/05/26)
- On war, Trump must remember the wisdom of St. Augustine
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Ronald Dodson“The ‘just war’ theologian understood that force must be governed by prudence, reckoning with second and third order effects. We didn’t do that in Iraq, or now.” (04/05/26)
- A Delicate Balance
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jake Scott“‘Strong, if not perfect’ was European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s verdict on the trade deal hammered out between the United States and the European Union (EU) and signed at Turnberry, Scotland, in July 2025. Nothing is perfect, of course — but the carefully hedged endorsement has appeared increasingly prophetic as the deal overcame hurdles and was finally voted through by the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee on March 19, 2026, by 29 votes to 9, and by the wider Parliament on March 26, by 417 votes to 154. The road to passing was not a smooth one.” (04/05/26)
- The Lost Art of Medicine: What Maimonides Knew That We Forgot
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Joseph Varon“Contemporary medicine is not failing for lack of knowledge. It is failing under the weight of its own complexity. The present era is defined by unprecedented access to data, advanced technologies, an ever-expanding network of subspecialties, and a dense architecture of protocols and performance metrics. Nearly every aspect of patient care can now be measured, quantified, and standardized. Interventions that were unimaginable only decades ago are now routine. Yet despite these advances, a fundamental element has been eroded. This erosion is philosophical.” (04/05/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-lost-art-of-medicine-what-maimonides-knew-that-we-forgot/
- Stop Pretending Military Spending is About “Defense”
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp“At the height of the US war in Vietnam, in 1969, the US government spent about $85.5 billion ($761 billion in inflated 2026 dollars) on ‘defense.’ In 1991, when the US deployed hundreds of thousands of troops for Desert Storm, the US government spent about $313 billion, or $750 billion accounting for inflation. In 2004, while fighting wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, that number was about $450 billion, or $780 billion in 2026 dollars. … The president keeps telling us THIS war will be over Real Soon Now, and he started talking about a $1.5 trillion military budget months before he launched Operation Epic Fail, so the 40% bump clearly isn’t about Iran. In what universe does the already bloated US military need nearly half again as much money next year as this year, and twice as much as it needed during previous wars?” (04/03/26)
- The Republican Plan To Nationalize Elections Is Performative Nonsense
Source: Reason
by Steven Greenhut“Under Donald Trump’s leadership, the GOP’s outlook is simple: Every election they win is a reflection of the will of the people. Every election they lose is rigged. The president never conceded the 2020 election, nor apologized for the January 6 Capitol attack. That was the result of angry partisans taking seriously Trump’s bogus election-fraud claims. Trump continues to push the tiresome rigged-election narrative even though he failed to win the dozens of court cases making such claims. Lately, Republicans aren’t doing well at the polls. … Instead of moderating their policies or engaging in normal soul searching, Republicans are doubling dow — and trying to nationalize elections by promoting something called the SAVE (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility) America Act.” (04/03/26)
https://reason.com/2026/04/03/the-republican-plan-to-nationalize-elections-is-performative-nonsense/
- The Last Conservatives
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson“What is sometimes described by the aggrandizing term ‘judicial activism’ is not really jurisprudence at all, properly understood: It is what happens when judges (and the legal commentariat) decide on the outcome first — ‘Of course Colorado can use the law to silence those homophobic creeps!’ — and then fill in the legal arguments post hoc and willy-nilly. But the desire for such outcome-driven jurisprudence, long a hallmark of the progressive model of social change, is increasingly prevalent among Republicans, for obvious reasons: There is no one in these United States more offended by a display of principle — or by adherence to official duties — than Donald Trump, who is the most profoundly morally corrupt man ever to occupy the office he holds.” (04/03/26)
- Deuce Bigelow, Political Philosopher
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob“Americans have not endured a military draft since the 1970s. Our bodies and very lives aren’t conscript. Just our fortunes. Not perfect, true, but as political trades go it’s better for equal freedom than slightly lower taxes and a return of the draft, which conscripts some to benefit (the story runs) ‘all.’ The all-volunteer force has produced the world’s best military … without ‘slave’ labor. Comedian Rob Schneider thinks differently.” (04/03/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/04/03/deuce-bigelow-political-philosopher/
- Why Is America Experiencing A Lower Birthrate?
Source: Independent Institute
by Scott Beyer“An oddly divergent narrative has taken hold in the commentary class. On one hand, many argue that America’s declining birthrate is the predictable result of too much prosperity. As societies grow wealthier, more educated, and more urban, they tend to have fewer children — a pattern across nearly every developed nation. Meanwhile a competing view holds that Americans are not having children because they are not wealthy enough — that the prime childbearing generations are facing stagnant wages, rising costs, and downward mobility. These two explanations seem contradictory, yet both contain elements of truth — and even work in tandem.” (04/04/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/04/04/why-is-america-experiencing-a-lower-birthrate/
- A seed of peace in the Iran war
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff“Over the past 100 years of wars, one incentive for peace has been a shared interest in preventing or ending famines – by opening humanitarian corridors. Adversaries would pause hostilities to allow food-related products to reach blameless, hungry civilians. Such a moment of goodwill sometimes opened a diplomatic window for a war to end. A similar tenderness toward the innocent is now being expressed during the Iran war. A number of countries including Italy, as well as the United Nations, are probing a diplomatic deal in which Iran would allow ships to sail through the Strait of Hormuz carrying raw materials for agricultural fertilizer made in Gulf Arab countries. Until the current war with Iran started Feb. 28, about a third of the world’s supplies of petroleum-based synthetic fertilizer products passed through the maritime choke point.” (04/03/26)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0403/A-seed-of-peace-in-the-Iran-war
- Serious Trouble, 04/05/26
Source: Serious Trouble
“Strictly Prohibited Ballroom.” (04/05/26)
https://www.serioustrouble.show/p/strictly-prohibited-ballroom
- Fountainhead Forum, episode 434
Source: Fountainhead Forum
“David Friedman on anarchism, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, and libertarianism.” (04/05/26)
- Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 04/05/26
Source: Antiwar.com
“In Easter Post, Trump Threatens Iran With ‘Hell,’ US Loses at Least 6 Aircraft, and More.” (04/05/26)
- Pink Flame of Liberty, 04/05/26
Source: Pink Flame of Liberty
“The ‘Attractive’ Soft-Pedalling of Christian Nationalism.” (04/05/26)